Author: Beth - Zazu

Embellishing Landscape Quilts can change the overall feel…

This weekend I posted a video finishing my large After White Sulfur wall hanging which I have been making on YouTube for some months. In that video I add gray metallic paint splatter and beading to the faint green mid-ground area and add orange satin-stitching in the white parts of the sky.

BEFORE & AFTER PICS for the larger piece

BEFORE

AFTER

Some specialized tools/materials: arranged clockwise, more or less:

Not an exhaustive list, here are some favorites. They work well, but better brands may exist.

Jacquard Textile Paint and Jacquard Lumiere Light Body Metallic Acrylic—craft paint for fabric would work too.Thread Heaven—I usually forget to use this, but threading the needle is a little easier, and tangles are fewer when I do.Lint roller—best deal at Costco, when they are in stock.Lots of light—I love to bead in direct sunlight, but at night I wear an LED light around my neck. Mine is called a Beam N Read, and you can check it out here on this link to Amazon: Beam n Read LED 6 Hands-Free Task Light.Beading needles—size 10 works well, but they end up bent.Nymo thread—nylon monofilament beading thread is much stronger than all-purpose sewing thread.Bent tip embroidery scissors—I can’t function without them.Glass beads of all shapes and sizes—watch sharp ones—they can shred thread and scrape you.Vellux blanket piece (under everything else) or other non-slip surface—to reduce bead “runaway.”

STEP 1 – SPLATTER FABRIC PAINT if desired

Here I use the same two types of fabric paint as in the video, this time in yellow and metallic gold. If this doesn’t makes sense, please check out the video. The time stamps under the video function like a table of contents, so you can click right to a topic of interest. The images below will enlarge quite a bit if you click through them.

1a) Blah beads vs. bright yellow!

1b) Mask area with paper and tape

1a) In conducting a blah bead audition, I discovered that I really wanted to add more yellow—to pick up both the bright yellow in the mountains and the light yellow in the tree. I had some bright yellow seed beads, but I wanted a dramatic transformation of the batik fabric, which has a distinct, repeating white flower in the pattern.

1b)Recreate the boundary of the area in question with paper and tape to protect the mini-landscape quilt as well as your work area from errant splatter. This is a little fussy but easy to do by lifting the paper to see the quilt and then drawing the boundary in stages. Once cut out, you can extend the paper with tape as needed. I just tape the fabric to do this as shown in the next picture. Notice that the tree trunk itself is covered with tape.

1c) Metallic yellow gold paint splatter

1d) A dramatic transformation!

1c) I brighten up metallic gold paint with clear yellow and add enough water to make it pretty drippy. Even so, it should look and behave more like paint than lemonade! Take a minute to experiment on paper before working on your piece. Experiment hitting the paint-loaded brush from above. Then switch the brushes and try hitting your other brush with the paint-loaded brush. Here I apply mine, creating sloppy splatters, not the distinct dots that I added to the bigger wall hanging. I like the sloppy spatter on the mini quite a lot!

1d)You can no longer see the white flower shapes. This makes me think of the open fields of Alpine wildflowers. I am imaging beading that brings to mind showy hills of red Paint Brush, white Bear Grass, blue Forget-Me-Nots, purple Larkspur, and yellow Columbine.

STEP 2 – ADD BEADING to taste

Initially I plan on mixing the colored beads uniformly across the splattered area, but after a quick test, I decide to make swaths of color, as if the blooms are growing in drifts. I work to make the placement appear random, as flowers would be in nature.

2a) Find beads: I want to add a few big ones

2b) Bead to taste

2a)I didn’t actually dislike the batik area that I splattered. But because I wanted to add “flowers” and because this is a tutorial on embellishing landscape quilts, I wanted to focus on one area and transform it completely. So I looked through my beads, imaging what they might add. Also, I hadn’t yet decided what to do with the yellow areas on the tree. So while I was at it, I found some nice brown and amber beads that I might use in those areas.

2b)Beading always takes time, but with a comfortable seat and a cup of tea, it can be quality time. You wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t enjoy working with your hands. The older I get, the more I enjoy this kind of work. Plus I usually do it while my husband and I watch t.v. I try to put in a double knot every 4 or 5 beads, and I hide all my knots in the quilt sandwich or inside a bead as I work.

STEP 4 – ADD STITCHING TO ENHANCE & FIX FLAWS

4a) Maybe a little red on the tree?

4b) Nothing fancy – just tying in the red

4a) After adding the beads, I want to add a little more red, so I decide to free-motion quilt the yellow on the tree to justify the red beading.

4b) I hop from area to area quickly and then cut off all the connecting threads. This is sloppy looking, but I will only fix it if I decide to sell it.

STEP 5 – TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS

5a) Heat set carefully

5b) Make sleeve and lath

5c) Clean up frayed edges

5a) Heat set paint as sson as your drying time has elapsed!! And always follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Mine needs 24 hours to time and then my hottest iron applied for 30 seconds with no steam. You only need to accidentally wash your design out once or twice before you take this very seriously!

5b) Here are videos on making hanging sleeves and lath: I am not a fan of dowels or rings for hanging wall art. Dowels hang on nails in a way that I find makeshift, and rings concentrate the stress of gravity on too small an area to avoid long term sagging of fiber work.

CAUTION: Always sew your sleeve on last if you are planning to machine stitch the part of the quilt where it goes. I rarely add stitching to the top few inches. But if I did so carelessly, I would sew my sleeve closed!

Hanging Sleeve for Irregular Bindings | ZSA video tutorialThis is an 11-minute video. Any reasonable sleeve will work. Again, my hanging sleeves are designed for artwork that I sell directly to the public so that the quilt will hang as neatly as possible in someone’s home or office. My sleeves are intended to make hanging simple and fool-proof.

Competition and quilt show sleeves must be constructed to their official specifications.

Easy Hanging Lath | ZSA video tutorialThis video is 5 minutes. I made my first sticks, but Frank always makes them for me now. I think he likes to keep me out of the woodworking area so I won’t start organizing it. Also, it is a nice ritual when I tell him that one or several pieces need sticks. Of course this little piece could use a much smaller stick, like screen molding, and a smaller sleeve to go with it.

5c) Don’t over do this. If you really don’t like raw-edges, no amount of trimming will make this aesthetically pleasing to you. Trimming too close is a no-no.

STEP 6 – TAKE STOCK – The good, the bad, and the ugly

Would I change anything? Not really. I would certainly finesse certain parts a little differently if I made more. And I might still add red beads to the yellow areas on the tree, which would have benefited from using variegated thread. I may also paint gold in the shapes on the binding at some point. But this was a good exercise and is a cute little landscape. It is a size I have never tried before except for my quilted trivets. I could see it looking smart in someone’s little hallway, or in a comfy reading nook somewhere.

Pinless Mitered Hems PRO METHOD is my most popular video, but not everyone has an easy time with the corner fold at first. Especially for beginners, who are already on a steep learning curve, making mitered corner napkins can be a challenge. But this project doesn’t have to be out of reach!

This fold is the fastest way that I know to miter a hemmed napkin corner so that it looks beautiful and will survive years of use and laundering. So it is well worth learning how to do it! But the fold is a little counter-intuitive, until you get the hang of it. I actually have to re-figure it out myself when I haven’t made napkins for a long time!!

Open pdf to view/print. Tape pages back to back.

The PDF has complete instructions, but I’ve added a few still pics taken when I was testing the model. Click them to enlarge.

And please let me know if the model helps you! I always love hearing how things are working!

1) Trim if needed before taping back to back.

2) Part 1 – Fold as indicated.

3) Part 2 – Fold miter. (Actually done AS you sew.)

4) This is how you will sew your napkins.

Click to watch video

The 20-minute video, included here for convenience, covers the entire project, from ironing to gift boxing. Click pic to open the video in another tab and watch it on YouTube.